I know the danger in asking personal questions about fasting on a forum, but this is more of a liturgical question regarding what is generally advised by varying groups. Normally this is a day to fast (and not eat on a plate is it?). However, falling on a Sunday, I wonder whether or not the fast is as appropriate or not. Generally to a Latin Rite Catholic feast days over take fast days if both fall on the same time. I did notice on my handy Reuthenian liturgical wall calendar, that the day is traditionally a fast day, but when it falls on a Sunday it is optional. I notice the Greek Orthodox calendar states that it remains a strict fast day. I am not really trying to be given pastoral advice, or be told what to do, so much as inquire what some of you or your parishes perspectives are on this particular fasting day falling on a Sunday.

Given the gravity and mystical meaning of the feast, even though it fall on a Sunday, I suspect we'd do well to avoid as much self-indulgence as possible on that day.

One of my Orthodox friends alway says in jest: "you Uniates are just Orthodox-lite."

My Russian Byzantine Catholic Church follows an orthodox/Orthodox calendar (we distribute the St. Tikhon's Lectionary Wall Calendar, Revised Julian). As far as food goes, it and our parish website calendar denote fast. No meat, fish or dairy is allowed says our priest in his reminder email.

Sielos - I find the statement by your Orthodox friend deeply offensive. Many Greek Catholics know, from personal experience, that there are many Orthodox parishes and Orthodox faithful that fall far short of the "ideal" just as we ourselves do. Perhaps your friend looks at the splinter in our eye and does not see the plank in their own.

I prefer "mote" and "beam", but I'm old fashioned.

What is a "mote"? :-P lol jk jk

Father also reminded us that strictly speaking we ought not to serve on or eat food from a flat plate, use a knife, or eat food that is round in shape. There wasn't any cabbage etc but someone brought melon. I'd used scallions instead of regular onion in my lentils for what it's worth. Must have been guided by the Holy Spirit.

While we're at it, The Mote in God's Eye by Pournelle & Niven is a great first contact with extraterrestrials story, complete with a couple of priest's comments on meaning . . .

When I was done preparing it, my cabbage wasn't in the least bit round.

Being Old Calendar,I had no problem last Sunday.I,along with my Spiritual Father(an Archimandrite) and two other people,attended a Slovak Festival at Sts.Cyril & Methodius(Latin Rite).I asked the host pastor,Fr.Ben,if St.John's Beheading was commemorated that day,he said that in the Latin Rite,the Sunday celebration takes precedence,therefore St. Johnwasn't commemorated.
BTW,the festival was great,Fr.Ben Kosnac is a great host,we all enjoyed ourselves.

Wow! Perception may not be everything, but it's close... you find her remark (that we "Uniates" are just Orthodox-lite) to be offensive. I find it absolutely hilarious. And although she can be somewhat tactless, nevertheless I think she's onto something: and that something may very well be that under the influence of the Latin Church, many of us Greek Catholics are not as observant of our own traditions as we could, and probably should be.

The tactlessness is all about her, of course...she's kinda "in her own head", so to speak...the Holy Spirit speaks through apparently very unlikely people sometimes.

During the candle making yesterday I asked Fr Stephan whether they followed the practice of not eating off platters, nor eating round shaped foods. He said they'd had borscht in bowls, but he confessed he had brought a melon, the first ripe one from their garden.



It pays to know the source. Once this same priest in story above, Russian Orthodox, said to me "What kind of a papist are you?" It was a multi layered poke which he would never have made if he didn't feel a certain personal knowing of me, I believe. It wasn't mean spirited but it was a real query. And I thought to myself, yeah, what kind of papist am I?! He'd just given a presentation about music in liturgy and it turned out he's been quoting extensively from Ratzinger on music in liturgy, from a book I hadn't read. I realized in his saying that to me that while I've read quite a lot of Benedict XVI's writing I had read almost nothing of Ratzinger's. It was one more time that this priest has given me a real gift. And since then I've been catching up on reading the man who would be pope.

I can hear the "'Uniates' are just Orthodox-lite" potentially in the same way. I look for whatever is the truth in that statement.

Well, there are Catholics who really are papists, and there are Eastern Catholics who really are uniates. We need to recognize this in ourselves.